Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 16:35:52 -0800 (PST)
From: Paul Bryant <levi_bryant-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: re: The Empty Square


Stephen--

You raise some good points here and I admit that I've had and do have
similar confusions. Comments below... 

> With regard to the Empty square as Event (capital E), I'm still
unclear
> about this. The examples you cite, Gombrowicz's hanged animals (or
rather
> hanged objects, the first is just a stick), Poe's purloined letter,
> Proust's Combray etc., are then all instances, particulars of a
universal,
> The Unique Event. This means then that all the events in _Cosmos_
> communicate and are distributed in terms of the hanged objects etc.
Is it
> then a normative universal which states that series can only interact
> according to this pardoxical element. 

If I'm understanding you correctly, then yes, you are absolutely
right. The key is that there be an empty element in the structure that
allows all the other elements to move about in shifting relations to
one another, thus enabling diachrony out of synchrony.  (Synchrony and
diachrony are dangerous terms in Deleuze, but I think they help to
explain what I'm getting at).  In Gombrowicz we see exactly this
occuring insofar as the characters endlessly try to explain the
hanging animals without ever being able to halt the movement of the
relations central to the plot of the story.

Juan-David Nasio has recently published a book on Lacan that contains
an excellent account of how this works:

"When you say that the unconscious exists in the act, what do you mean
by the word 'existence'?

"First, one must understand that the unconscious is a whole bordered
by an element that has been extracted from within its frame.  If we
accept the coupling of *a whole* and of *an element* extracted from
the interior of the whole and that reappears at its edge, we can
define the structure of teh unconscious as a whole minus 1, bordered
by that 1 (empty square).  Thus it will be a whole with a hole inside
it (w)hole, but imited by an edge.  The element S1 (master signifier),
will always be plus 1 or minus 1.  What does plus 1 or minus 1 mean? 
This means that the 1 is always outside the whole.  Now whether it is
plus one or minus one depends on the way we see the whole.  If we look
at the whole in terms of its inner structure, we will say that an
element is missing:  it is thus minus 1.  If we rather view it from
above, that is in terms of its extension and its border, we will say
that the one missing rom the inside of the frame is situated now as a
limit that surrounds and delimits the whole:  it is a plus 1, as a rim
that borders the network, or as a written trace.

"Specifically, the concept of existence reveals above all the fact
that the element S1 is the external limit of the structure (the
anomolous).  Ex-sistence always pertains to the order of the One and
to the order of exteriority.  The One 'ex-sists' and causes the whole
to exist, that is, it gives the whole the necessary consistency to
remain a coherent and structured chain. The One ex-sists so that the
whole consists.  This way of writing 'ex-sist' was Heidegger's, but
Lacan adopted it to give a new status to the notion of existence.  The
word 'ex-sistence' means primarily, then, that it is a unique and
external element, and secondly, that this element is the place holder
of the whole and thirdly, that the whole is organized as a connected
web that lacks a thread (the hole), the one that has become the edge."
 _Five Le3ssons on the Psychoanalytic Theory of Jacques Lacan_.

Nasio's book is a fabulous primer on Lacan, and I highly recommend it
to anyone interested in learning more about him.  It's short, cheap
and very clear.  At any rate, this empty space that ex-sists is
precisely Deleuze's empty square.  Like the empty shelf in _Alice and
Wonderland_, we can imagine moving all about in the "whole", causing
the virtual elements of the whole to entertain different relations
with each other, thus insuring that repetition will always be
repetition of the different.  It's always one sign too many, or one
sign too few.  So, in Gombrowicz's _Cosmos_ the hanging animals--
which are first a hanging stick --*represent* that element or
signifier in the story that resists being integrated into the whole. 
In the inability to integrate this element, all the other relations
(from marks on the ceiling, to bent grass, to the mouths of the women)
move about in variable relations to one another, giving rise to ever
new stories.

> I detect a confusion. The two series of which Paul Bryant wrote, the
infant
> and adult series, their heterogeneity and interrelation by means of
the
> empty square, appearing as a lack in one and an excess in the other
- these
> two series which constitute a structure - cannot be equated with the
> virtual and the actual. The empty square does not cause the virtual
and
> actual to communicate, but only virtual series which by communicating
> produce the actual.

You might be right here.  Treating this all as the virtual would be an
elegant way of solving the problem, but would leave us with the
question of how actualization takes place.  Deleuze talks about
"spatio-temporal dynamisms" in DR, it would be interesting to see how
this works in relation to the process of different/ciation.  I've
asked about this on a number of occasions, but haven't seen a
satisfactory answer yet.
 
> Now I'm rambling, but thanks again for your help,
> 
> Steve
 
Not rambling at all...  Thanks for the exchange,

Paul 

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